One of the most successful solo artists in British music history, Robbie failed his GCSEs – through lack of interest rather than lack of intelligence; his exam results surprised everybody – but became a national treasure instead.

And of course he’s loaded too.

Richard Branson

It hasn’t held Branson back (Picture: Getty Images)

Despite being dyslexic, dropping out of school at 16 and having a terrible beard, Richard Branson is worth around four billion dollars.

Sir Philip Green

We’ll overlook the recent scandal… (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)

He’s messed it up a bit now with the whole BHS scandal, but prior to his becoming public enemy number one Sir Philip left school at 15, started importing shoes and turned that business into a retail empire.

The former Cheryl Cole is a woman of many surnames, but not many certificates.

She was rarely at school and didn’t study, but she’s gone on to become a great pop star, an X Factor judge and the face of L’Oreal.

Steven Spielberg

Don’t need a fancy education to win an Oscar (Picture: Getty)

Spielberg was repeatedly rejected by the University of Southern California’s school of theatre, film and television, so he just got on with the job of becoming one of the most successful and important film-makers of all time instead.

Deborah Meaden

This dragon isn’t going to let grades hold her back (Picture: BBC)

The fearsome business Dragon left school before her A-levels and studied business at college.

Today she’s worth in excess of £40 milliion and has been awarded three honorary degrees.

In addition to his TOWIE fame, he runs his own fashion brand and a boutique store.

AA Gill

Dyslexia stopped him from doing well at school – but not from succeeding in life (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)

Writer and critic AA Gill is very dyslexic, which made his schooldays difficult: he was advised to look into hairdressing as a career. Gill drifted for a while and didn’t start writing until his 30s.

Simon Cowell

Cowell worked his way up (Picture: Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)

Cowell left school with a couple of O-Levels and landed a job in, er, the mail room of EMI.

From that relatively unimpressive start he went on to become a talent scout and carved out a musical empire that includes the mighty X Factor.

Jo Fairley

Not bad going for one of Britain’s leadng businesswomen (Picture: James Emmett/ANL/REX/Shutterstock)

You may know Fairley as the founder of the Green & Black chocolate empire, as a successful writer or as the former editor of Cosmopolitan and the UK’s youngest ever magazine editor. Not bad for someone who left school at 16 without any A Levels.

Guy Ritchie

He was a bit of a bad boy at school (Picture: Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM)

Ritchie went to a posh school, but he was kicked out at 15 for bad behaviour – although nothing as bad as the behaviour the characters in his many successful movies get up to.

Lawrence Graff OBE

A diamond geezer, with or without good grades (Picture: Carl Court/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

At 15 Graff left school to learn the jewellery trade. His first partnership went out of business so he started selling his designs to jewellers across England.

He founded the Graff Diamonds company in 1960, and is currently worth $5 billion.

Lord Alan Sugar

Business mogul Sugar wasn’t academic (Picture: Getty)

The peer formerly known as Suralan has but one GCSE to his name.

The Amstrad founder and Apprentice star is believed to be worth £1.4 billion.